We've offered plenty of strategies for "wartime pitching": how to get around a nonexistent news hole and reporters focused solely on terrorist attacks/national news/major
business crises/the death of a celebrity. But sometimes there's simply no way around the fact that your news won't make the cut.
This week's strategy comes from Barbara Ware, VP of PR for eMedicine.com, a Web-based medical reference. Ware previously served as director of media relations for Washington
Hospital Center and has done PR for local TV stations.
Several years ago, Ware was promoting a community dance recital just as the news of Princess Diana's death broke. She learned her lesson: "If you don't have an angle, admit
it."
But don't let the time go to waste. "You rarely have downtime in this business," Ware told attendees at a PRSA National Capital Chapter gathering last week in Washington, D.C.
She advises communicators to use time when there's no room for their pitches to work on things like executive profiles, updating databases and company fact sheets ... or even
preparing "angles" for future major news stories. One of her former colleagues at Washington Hospital Center, for example, put together a media relations plan to use if a major
public figure ever suffered heart trouble. When Boris Yeltsin fell victim to heart disease, the communications exec was immediately able to pitch the press with four doctors from
the nation's third largest cardiology center who could serve as expert sources for local and national media. (Ware: 301/625-0888, [email protected])